1967 Shelby rollbar shipping label?

I recognize that name, since I live nearby! Not sure of the exact address, but it should be:

Cobra Performance
3??? La Grande Blvd
Sacramento, CA 95823

It was one of the few companies that specialized in Shelby's and Cobra's in the late 70's, early 80's. It was owned and operated by Gordon Gimbel. He now lives in Roseville, CA, and vintage races his FIA Cobra, Lotus, Boss Mustang, etc. I spent a lot of time there after buying my Shelby in 1980, rounding up a few parts, picking the brains of the folks there, and basically drooling over some of the stuff he had laying around. I recall he had a lot of NOS Shelby American parts, and at that period of time, was thee place to go for parts.

Ken​

 

Good info, now, this is a start of where they came from, and, maybe who did the rubber covering. More info is needed.

 

Your car was missing the rollbar when I first saw it in 1980. Doug ??? can not remember his last name bought the roll bar for the car. I have some nice pictures of your car When it was burried in Tom's Garage and some of it as we looaded it onto my trailer. I will send them to you in the next week and you can choose to share them if you wish !!!!!


Dominic

 

Another person who worked with Gordon in finding sources for Shelby/Cobra parts was a guy named Rick Reese. Rick was restoring a 289 Cobra in the early 80's, which he offered to sell me for ~@25K , which is what I paid for my first house a couple years earlier! Haven't seen him in years. Last I heard he was working at the Post Office in Sacramento. Their ads are in some of the earlier SAAC Marque magazines.

Ken​

 

Jim,
I don't know if you need further info or if he can help. But, I work with Gordon Gimbel on his racecars. Cobra Performance was sold years ago but he may be able to help if you have any more questions. Just let me know.

 

Can anyone confirm if the roll-bars for the 67 GT500 were installed at the Ford plant or at the Shelby plant?

 

Yes... real easy. The Shelby plant.

 

Jeff, do you know at what point in the assembly line process a car was designated to be a Shelby? Do you think cars could have been selected randomly? Or selected by serial number well before the car ever had the first body part stamped? I've always found it interesting to know exactly how much assembly/disassembly a Shelby line worker had to do to the cars. My car is a mid-January car and it shipped from Shelby to the original dealer in April. I have no idea when it left Ford for the Shelby plant or exactly what took place while it was at the Shelby. It really gets me curious when I read on the forum cars with higher Shelby Vin #s were shipped before some lower Vin # cars. I suppose it could be because dealers wanted a particular color and based on dealer orders/sales some cars moved ahead of others.

 

When I restored 67 GT 350 #2220, Shelby DSO was written under the paint on both sides of the cowl. So they must have known it was a Shelby very early on.

Larry

 

The car would have been started and designated as a Shelby from the first body panel... in fact even before that as they organized the building of the car for the first half of construction. As I've been told by plant managers the orders were received then once all parts for the built the orders were arranged so that the "difficult cars" were intermixed with "easier cars" so the the line would not be slowed. (this goes for the second pat of assembly also from the holding area)

And example would be that you did not want a bunch of big block AC cars one after another since each took additional time to assembly. So they would like have built 6 cylinders and base 289 cars intermixed with the Shelbys .

The VIN as applied (from my understanding) at or near the end of the body and trim line

 

Thanks Jeff, this is exactly the kind of information I really enjoy reading about the most. And it makes perfect sense based on the stage the car was in when the "K" or "Q" was stamped in the Ford Vin #. For a long time now I have been trying to get a clear understanding of the assembly process so I ordered a lot of paperwork about my car from Dave Matthews. One of the documents was 7 pages of Ford items that were removed and Shelby items installed. Do you think this means that the car was fully assembled at Ford before Shelby got it and parts were actually removed by Shelby or was this just paperwork for a financial audit trail? I would really like to know exactly what was assembled by Ford and what was removed and installed at the Shelby plant. Take the roll-bar for an example. If this was installed at the Shelby plant then it required Shelby workers to remove most of the rear interior. Seems to me items like this would have been installed at the Ford plant. After reading the information Dave sent, it got me to thinking the relationship between Ford and Shelby was; Ford made a paper sale for a 1967 GT Fastback with deluxe interior to Shelby and then gave Shelby a financial credit for the items "removed". Then Shelby made a paper purchased from Ford for the parts and accessories that would make it a GT350 or a GT500. Then Ford and Shelby would "true-up" when the dealers paid for the cars. Of course Shelby had to purchase items that Ford didn't manufacture from other vendors such as fiberglass etc. What do you think?

 

Sound like he sent you a copy of add/delete sheets

Well that is pretty much what you have... what Ford did (on paper) at San Jose. Of course some of it is a paper exercise (S code engine.. replaced my ....) so that the process would be easier to understand by some engineers and such.

What is not included there was done at Shelby

Like the 66 we have plenty of examples where some interior items were removed so that Shelby features could be added (items can often be found marked so that the same parts were returned to the same car) Alos many of the Shelby items and processes were not something typically done at San Jose or would have slowed up the line allot - example the roll bar. Though this could have been accomplished at the mid point where the cars waited and reorganized for the second half of production, this would mean that they would have had to find the space for another station for just a small hand full of cars ... would not have made sense at that point.

Don't know about those points... my focus has been with the workers and process not the accountants